Author Brandon Sanderson belittles JK Rowling, saying she “shouldn’t be allowed to write the script”

Author Brandon Sanderson, fresh off the release of Wind and Truth, has opinions about successful authors who then go on to pen movies.

(L-R) JESSICA WILLIAMS as Eulalie “Lally” Hicks, CALLUM TURNER as Theseus Scamander, FIONA GLASCOTT as Minerva McGonagall, DAN FOGLER as Jacob Kowalski, JUDE LAW as Albus Dumbledore and EDDIE REDMAYNE as Newt Scamander in Warner Bros. Pictures’ fantasy adventure “FANTASTIC BEASTS: THE SECRETS OF DUMBLEDORE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures © 2022 Warner Bros. Ent. All Rights Reserved. Wizarding World™ Publishing Rights © J.K. Rowling WIZARDING / Fantastic Beasts

 

This past weekend, author Brandon Sanderson published Wind and Truth, the fifth novel in The Stormlight Archive, an epic fantasy series set on a world wracked by dangerous storms. Sanderson’s fame has been on the rise for a while. According to The Guardian, he’s sold 34 million books over the course of his career, which really got going with the publication of Elantris in 2005. After that came Mistborn. That brought him to the attention of Harriet McDougal, who picked Sanderson to finish The Wheel of Time series after original author Robert Jordan, her husband, died.

 

And then came The Stormlight Archive, Sanderson’s own attempt at a Wheel of Time-level epic tale. It’s been hugely successful, in part because of how everything in The Stormlight Archive is related to the rest of Sanderson’s work; most all of his stories take place in a vast interconnected universe called the Cosmere, and the linkages are there for fans to find.

“The Marvel Cinematic Universe started in 2008 and the Cosmere started in 2005,” Sanderson said, ruminating on his success. “And I think the advent of the internet, allowing us to go back and easily find summaries and ways to remind ourselves of what had come before, unearthed a natural desire to have stories get a little more interconnected. It allowed complexity to come into a serialized work in a way that hadn’t been mass market-viable really ever before.”

On top of that, Sanderson has been a huge innovator within the publishing industry, raising record amounts of money for books on Kickstarter. He got that idea after a 2010 dispute over eBook pricing resulted in Amazon removing books published by Macmillan, Sanderson’s publisher, from their storefront. “That’s when I realized, man, I work for Amazon,” Sanderson said. “I don’t work for the fans any more, I don’t work for the publisher.” Wanting to “get out from under [Amazon’s] thumb,” Sanderson created Dragonsteel, his “own little publishing house.” He holds conventions, sells merch, and builds hype around his books without having to rely on middlemen.

Brandon Sanderson. Photo by Nazrilof. Image courtesy of Tor Books. / Brandon Sanderson

 

You might wonder why, if Sanderson has all this success, no one has made a movie or TV show based on his work. Well, there have been attempts, but so far they’ve fallen through. “Hollywood is a weird place,” he said.

In theory, Sanderson might be able to speed the adaptation process along if he took time apart from his voluminous literary output and tried to sell it himself, perhaps volunteering to write the screenplay. But he has reservations about authors making that leap. He gave the example of Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, who personally penned the scripts for the Fantastic Beasts prequel movies. “She should not have been allowed to write screenplays,” he said. “You think you’re good at one aspect of writing? That doesn’t necessarily mean you’re good at others.”

It’s true that the Fantastic Beasts movies didn’t deliver like Rowling and the studio wanted them to. Three were made, but each one brought in substantially less money than the last, even as the budgets remained consistently high. Originally there were five Fantastic Beasts movies planned, but last we checked the series was on the shelf. It looks like Warner Bros. Discovery is pivoting to a Harry Potter TV show instead, with Francesca Gardiner on board as showrunner.

I have to imagine that someone will make an earnest attempt to adapt The Stormlight Archive or Mistborn or something to the screen sooner or later, but for now, Sanderson is happy writing fantasy books. “If you fell out of reading it, give it a try. You will find everything you want that is in any other genre, plus it will have dragons,” he said. “So why would you read anything else?”